From: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

"I had once seen Ajax, Father's best dog, get into a fight with a hummingbird and lose. The hummingbird had dived at him and spooked him until he'd trotted back to the front porch, looking very embarrassed. (It is possible for a dog to look embarrassed, you know. He'd whipped around and started licking his nether parts, a sure sign a dog is trying to hide his true feelings.)

Jacqueline Kelly

From: "The Guitar Man"

"Night after night, who treats you right?
Baby, it's the guitar man....

Then you listen to the music, and you like to sing along.
You want to get the meaning out of each and every song.
Then you find yourself a message
and some words to call your own,
and take 'em home."

Bread & Cake

From: "Hard to Make a Stand"

"We've got loud guitars and big suspicions,
great big guns and small ambitions,
and we still argue over who is God."

Sheryl Crow

Booknapping Ain't Easy

I've been wondering how I'm going to do this.

Um, let's see. I've been working on this brand new project, and it takes A LOT of time.

It's not like my usual stuff. For one thing, if this project gets published, it won't be for 20 or so years. But I love it anyway, more than anything else I've ever attempted.

It zaps my energy, though, and leaves me capable of not much else.

Here's a picture of how far I've gotten:

So there you go.

Lately, I've been in that proverbial room where artists go to be flogged by their muse, where they can be alone with their project to create.

I've missed you bloggees, so I'm getting back on my blogging wagon. I've seen so many words that I've wanted to share. Like these ones:

"No man is ever rich enough to buy back his past."
Oscar Wilde

(Thanks for that, Liz. I never responded but it obviously meant a lot to me.)

Have you been sidetracked by Life lately? It happens. You're forgiven. Now write.

From: "The Negro Speaks of Rivers"

image by Gordon Parks

"My soul has grown deep like the rivers."

Langston Hughes

From: Graceling

"It gave her some pleasure to knock him on the head with the hilt of her knife. She grabbed his hair, dragged him onto his back, and dropped a pill onto his tongue. They would all say, when they woke to headaches and their shame, that the culprit had been a Graceling boy, Graced with fighting, acting alone. They would assume she was a boy, because in her plain trousers and hood she looked like one, and because when people were attacked it never occurred to anyone that it might have been a girl."

Kristin Cashore

From: "Thumbing My Way"

"No matter how cold the winter,
there's a springtime ahead."

Pearl Jam